A Commentary by Doug Draper
If we need one more reason not to blow billions of bucks building a brand new multi-lane highway across the middle of the greater Niagara region on the Ontario side of the border, here it is. And it begins with a couple of question?
The 1920s Peace Bridge, already often over-burdened with traffic at three lanes.
If Ontario did barge ahead with this 1990s plan for a “mid-peninsula highway” at the behest of some our provincial and municipal leader who just don’t seem to want to give up on mid-20th century habits for moving people and goods around, where would all of this additional car and truck traffic go when it reaches the international border crossing at Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York? Especially when it is now looking like any twinning of the already over-burdened Peace Bridge has been put on ice for now and the foreseeable future?
That’s right, according to a June 30 report in The Buffalo News, the state and federal governments in the U.S. simply don’t have the hundreds of millions of dollars that would be needed to build a twin span across the Niagara River now. And if that is so, it is just as much as saying that they can’t afford the additional infrastructure needed to accommodate over more cars and trucks crossing what is already one of the busiest border crossings in all of North America.
In and of itself, that should send a powerful statement to the proponents of a mid-peninsula highway that would cut across the heart of rural Niagara between Hamilton and the Greater Toronto Area and the Fort Erie-Buffalo border crossing that the car-and-truck juggernaut that has dominated the last 60 or more years is no longer economically sustainable, let alone environmentally sustainable.
And even if Ontario feels it can afford to spend $2 or more billion dollars on a new multi-lane highway to the border, what good would it do for the flow of people and goods across the border to lead ever more cars and trucks to a three-lane bridge that is already a bottle neck (one that is on the very of becoming dysfunctional during high travel periods) for the traffic crossing it now?
Isn’t it time that governments on both sides of the border started seriously thinking outside the box for more sustainable transport solutions, from rail for consumer goods and shuttle-bus and train services for people to other more affordable options we could find if we had the will to do it?
For the sake of the future prosperity and health of communities on both sides of the Niagara border, let’s hope so.
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Niagara At Large 
If the world started and ended with St Catharines, there would likely be no need for a Mid-Pen corridor.
However there is the inconvenient truth that a 100,000 people in Welland, Port and the “hinterland” are being reduced to poverty by the St. Catharines centric myopia of certain ideological agendas, and their political enablers. The same mindset that has destroyed sustainable healthcare in Southern Niagara is at play in this discussion.
The facts are that the construction of the mid-pen would be the 21st Century equivalent of the Welland Canal, bring 20,000 + new citizens to the greater Welland area, and between $3 & $5 Billion (with a B) in new investment to Welland and Port.
Using the environmental canard is thin gruel for the thousands of unemployed and impoverished in Southern Niagara that see mid-pen nay- sayers as disconnected elitists who would take food from the mouths of their children to satisfy an ideological agenda.
At the end of the day, these nay-sayers should stand ready to defend the morality of policies designed to use poverty as a weapon of “progressive” social engineering. They should stand ready to explain to the mothers and fathers of Southern Niagara why there is no work here, and the best they can hope for is a bus ticket out of town.
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Chris, I for one, am tired of subsidizing the car and truck industry, which includes highways, roads, traffic maintenance, accident clean up, pollution, health care costs as a direct result of these things, etc. We need to think more rail and more green. I am tired as a non-driver of being an ATM machine for any government that wants to build another highway I won’t be using, or another parking lot I won’t need. If these things are “needed”, then let’s move to a full user pay model and see where the “market” for it goes.
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Angela, have you written to McGuinty to get him to have the Niagara GO Train to travel to Niagara Falls via Welland? Those characters have written a report recommending a Hamilton-Niagara Falls GO train, right through St. Kitts which already has a super highway with excellent GO Bus service. (http://www.gotransit.com/public/en/improve/ea_niagara.aspx)
Note how the consultants gave them the answer they wanted – that it takes much longer via Welland than via St.Kitts, but they omitted including canal-waiting-time for the St. Kitts route, which would have closed the gap. Furthermore, they neglected to cost upgrading the TH&B line, which would also have allowed faster train traffic.
If people are serious about opposing the Mid-Pen-Highway, petition for a GO train through Welland – at a lot CHEAPER cost to upgrade the old TH&B line than to build a new $.75Trillion rail tunnel in St. Kitts (so that trains won’t need to wait for the canal…).
BTW, a GO Train still won’t solve our rural Transit problem: how to design a transit system for a far-flung region like Niagara? It’s currently based on a big-city model, and does little for people in the boonies.
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CORRECTION: the proposed tunnel/overpass for the GO train in St.Kitts is budgetted at $.75Billion (not Trillion).
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I have one question: where is the evidence for your assertions? Why should anyone believe the numbers you throw around? What recent, RELEVANT examples can you cite?
Slinging mud —and hyperbole—at those who oppose the mid-Pen does not constitute an argument. Niagara is not in an economic slump because it lacks a mid-Pen highway. Nor will building one cause jobs to appear, like rabbits out of a hat. That is called magical thinking. And it is quite as absurd as making the claim that anyone who opposes the mid-Pen is part of some sinister cabal of elitists bound on snatching bread from the mouths of hungry babes in Niagara’s southern municipalities.
Fact: the price of gas is going nowhere but up. The future for long-distance haulage does not lie in highways, but in rail. The U.S. knows that, and its high time that Canada got on board.
Fact: this province is broke. The last thing it needs is to waste billions of public dollars on the unproven assumption that “build it and they will come.” That’s 20th century thinking, and it didn’t work then. Look at the 407 if you don’t believe me.
Fact: If the future is in the knowledge industry, then roads are superfluous.
Fact: Manufacturing is not coming back as long as the federal government is determined that Canada is going to be an exporter of raw materials.
Petro-states are the death of manufacturing. Our economic woes are the result of the globalized economy, the free trade mania, and the deliberate policies of the Harper government. Therefore, our problems are not going away any time soon.
It’s high time that we stopped looking into the sky expecting Superman to fly down and solve our problems. Are there NO creative thinkers in this region? Why can’t we identify the problems and start to craft real solutions to them? Yes, we’ve got the scenery. But we can’t even keep our own kids from moving away. We should be putting money into helping entrepreneurial graduates from Brock and Niagara College start businesses of their own. HERE. We should demand an investment in our schools, which are some of the most cash-starved in the province.
A recent study showed that healthcare is the second largest employer in the country. Ontario invested in programs for healthcare professionals at Niagara College and Brock University—and then cuts healthcare jobs in its haste to “integrate” services into one hospital. What good is that going to do any of us? What’s the use of 20,000 more people, when we only have one full service hospital?
We should also demand that our municipalities plan with us for a future that includes some real investment in the downtown areas. Urban density is a nice phrase, but as long as our municipalities are in thrall to the developers, all we get is soulless suburban sprawl whose infrastructure costs cancel out the property tax revenues.
Solving our economic problems is not going to be easy. But it’s high time we got creative, and faced the fact that the world is moving on, and we’d better be prepared to move with it.
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I much prefer Fiona’s facts, and I would gladly nominate her for political office.
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I agree absolutely!
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The main reason that we’ve lost so many jobs in Niagara is the cost of ENERGY.
Ontario bet on the expensive, wrong horse in the 1960’s – Nuclear. After building Pickering for 10 years, it started to produce electricity and the time came to pay for it. at that time, each region of Ontario bought power from the nearest generating station, and poor old Toronto was going to pay high rates from Pickering compared to cheap Niagara Falls.
Since Torontonians had voting power, the government of the day decided to equalise the power grid and make all Ontario pay the same rate. Niagara’s rates rose a lot to reduce Toronto’s.
The net result: industries that had located here for cheap hydro from Niagara Falls, as well as good ship, rail and road transport, suddenly found it more economical to move elsewhere in the world. Remember, companies can migrate easily, while people can not. It took them 30-40 years to move out, and as the shock of John Deere’s recent departure shows, we can still lose a few more.
Another factor has been “Just-in-Time-Delivery” of inventory to business, which was introduced about the same time, and depends upon good highways. Business and industry ‘did the math’ and realised that it was expensive to build warehouse space, so they decided to have stock delivered just-in-time to be manufactured or sold. Therefore, since development follows highways, many of our railway lines became bicycle trails.
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If the US can’t build the bridge then we should. It is in our best interest to increase access to the US market. Conversely, it is in our best interest to make that bridge more accessible with the mid-pen highway.
If it felt that Fiona’s arguments are the right direction then we will have an election to see who has the vision to bring some semblance of prosperity back to Niagara. Good luck selling that scenario.
After 23 years of unprecedented economic failure under Kormos, I suspect the people of the Welland Riding just might be ready for a change.
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Kormos was only part of government for five of those twenty three years; since then we have been exposed to the failed policies of subsequent Conservative and Liberal governments. Having an MPP change their colours here is not going to do a thing, unless the full government changes and stops putting in place old ideas that don’t work. Highways do not create jobs; they just bring employers to them and eliminate access to these jobs for people that cannot drive. I fail to see where this is going to eliminate poverty.
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Your suspicions are excalty that, John.
Were Wellanders ready for change, they’d not have voted in that proven liar (“yes I will do what Union Jack says; no I won’t… yes I will; no I won’t) federally. Seeing Malcolm win again was a HUGE disappointment.
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John, sooner or later Tories are going to have to face an unpleasant truth: you know beans about the economy. For one thing, let’s see how the U.S. comes out of its double-dip recession before we decide to put all our eggs into that particular basket. What we’ll see from the U.S., even if only in the short run, is more protectionism. When is our stupid government going to show it gives a damn about OUR small businesses, OUR manufacturing? We know how much it cares about multinational oil companies in the Alberta Oil Patch…
Blindly continuing with the neoliberal agenda that has spectacularly FAILED to increase the standard-of-living around the world through its supposed “trickle-down” effect is not only reactionary, it’s just plain stupid…
As is blaming the state of the economy in Niagara on the fact that Welland has had NDP representation for the past thirty-odd years. By that argument, the non-NDP ridings in Niagara ought to be booming. How come Rick Dykstra hasn’t been able to bring prosperity to St. Catharines, whose downtown looks more depressing every year?? What about Niagara Falls?
This entire line of thinking not only ignores macroeconomics, but makes a mockery of what individual members of parliament and the legislature are actually elected to do. Do you really believe that an elected representative should be judged by his/her ability to steal tax dollars for his/her own riding, like Tony Clement, for instance? Clement’s little “favours” only benefited certain members of his riding, those in the tourist and building industry. Others who don’t get anything out of a new gazebo or two are just taxpayers on the hook for vote-buying handouts, like all the rest of us. Every tax dollar wasted in this way is one less tax dollar for things we all need, like better healthcare.
You don’t like the state of the economy in Niagara? Then write the Prime Minister about it, John. Maybe he’ll listen to you.
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Fiona, it’s refreshing to read someone with a brain, capable of lucidly stating real arguments.
And I agree with everything you wrote except 1. the suggestion to write to a pol, and 2. that Harper had anything to do with our economic mess. And that pains me, because I’m not a fan of Harper.
1. Writing will make one feel good. It accomplishes nothing. Pols already know what’s good for us. We’re to shut up and give them our money so they can buy votes. I used to think only the Lieberals and New Delusionals were guilty of that. About a year ago I received the wake-up call. After all four parties banded together to stifle dissent on a law to limit health choice (Bill C-36) I don’t even vote any more, because they’re all criminals. That I’ve an opportunity to pick the slavemaster every few years doesn’t change the fact that I’m still working for him.
2. Harper became a Keynesian when outnumbered by the Lieberals, New Delusionals, and Blokheads. He had two choices: a) borrow more money like every other Keynesian or b) quit and let the 3 stooges run things. He chose a), and now we’re paying. (FWIW I’d have preferred to see him quit and get a majority when the 3 stooges frakked up the country so bad Kanuks would be pleading to vote him a majority. Instead the media gave it to him with the NDP/Quebec landslide, scaring the krap out of Ontarians into voting Conartist.)
I want to believe this Mid-pen nonsense can be stopped, because unlike a bill that removes healthy choices, it is tangible. Few people care about health. Almost everybody cares about being able to drive.
Whether Peak Oil is fact or fiction is irrelevant. Fuel prices will rise because 1. refinery capacity has peaked and 2. governments and their bosses the banks have created so much fiat currency out of nothing.
When fuel prices have risen high enough that people are starving merely so they can commute to work, then we might be able to convince those who think a new hiway is their salvation to find something else to worship.
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Interesting points Dave.
However, would you agree that the only way we’re going to pay for aging Boomer healthcare will be to attract more Business/Industry to employ more people to pay more Health taxes?
Highways have their problems; the car is probably the greatest cause of ecological destruction in the history of mankind. But highways lead development – in hindsight, the QEW should have been built ABOVE the Escarpment, as per the original 1930’s plan, so that we wouldn’t have destroyed/developped/subdivided our tender fruit land.
On the other hand, do you really think that people who oppose the Mid-Pen-Corridor want us to NOT DRIVE? And don’t we all want JOBS to replace the 20,000+ jobs that have left Niagara over the past 30 years? Or perhaps we can survive as the Retirement Capital of Canada with many more healthcare workers in many more nursing homes (we’re 3rd after Victoria and Peterborough now)? Aren’t Quality jobs the best way to End Poverty?
Your suggestions please? How DO we attract employers?
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We do need to focus on a new economy and new ideas. If we are forward thinking, we will embrace alternate technologies (green), including alternate transportation modalities (trains, dedicated tracks for passengers and freight).
If governments can subsidize oil and manufacturing, then they can certainly subsidize new technologies with similar incentives. Oil subsidies should be reduced in favour of new technology subsidies: trains, energy sustainability, alternate energies, hybrid vehicles etc. The rest of the developed world understands this (especially in Europe), I have no idea why we are becoming such laggards, except that maybe we’re
becoming somewhat of a Petro state, which is an insult to what Canada should be.
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Actually Mark, Harper & Flaherty HAVE removed the oil subsidies ,,, over 10 years, so as not to shut down the oil patch jobs as Trudeau did in 1980.
And there Are various federal subsidies to incent Renewable Energy, ranging from the ecoENERGY programme to fast depreciation. (Have you used the ecoENERGY grants to install Solar Hot Water for example?)
There are also grants for research projects to help Canadians develop new Renewable technology. One of the most interesting is the grant to build huge bus-sized balloons at the bottom of Lake Ontario. Then they’ll use wind & solar electricity to Store compressed air in the balloons and release it to run turbines generators when power demand is high. If it works, my hope is that we’ll be able to abandon both fossil-fuel and nuclear electricity.
Oh, and don’t forget Ontario’s Green Energy Act which is touted as a world leader, despite the screwy, slimy un-tendered Samsung deal. Unfortunately, it will be paid by higher electricity rates, which will likely drive away employers, just as happened over the past 30 years in Niagara…..
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Not-with-standing all these admirably cogent arguments, my focus remains the rebirth of Welland as a thriving industrial hub. The only key to this rebirth within our collective reach is the mid-pen. Regrettably we have little influence on energy prices that are killing the sustainability of our community. However we do have a unique opportunity to speak in unison with a loud political voice and get action on a matter of survival. At the end of the debate, we have a stark choise – boomtown or backwater. We must pick one.
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Lorne,
In response to your comments, please indicate where you learned (source please) that oil subsidies no longer exist. According to the Green Party they do. I’m not being argumentative, because I know you support alternate energies.
I am in favour of the Green Energy Act, but I fear that it won’t be around for long, probably not after the next election.
As for the Eco Energy grants for solar hot water, I would love to use them
or to have used them, but bankers and lawyers in Toronto forced me to sell my property or face foreclosure. Had they been local decisions, they probably would have realized that my property was worth more than they thought, and that consolidation of mortgages was a win-win situation. Their unprofessionalism angers me, especially since they have received bailouts from taxpayers such as myself. At the end of the day, though, I sold for profit, and they lost what could have been a lucrative mortgage. Too bad, I would have preferred to develop my property further along the lines of sustainability.
Hopefully I’ll be able to buy a second hand Prius with my profits.
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I’m not very strong at math, but there’s a widget (much like a car odometer) spinning wildly at the Climate Action Network. The number is in the billions and growing, and the title is “Canadian Tax Breaks To Oil Companies”.
Those tax breaks could be spent much more productively elsewhere.
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CBC March 31, 2011. NDP estimates oilsands receive roughly two billion dollars worth of oil susidies annually.
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Ah, such a hard task you set, Mark – to track down in ‘print’ what ‘memory’ says is fact! But here’s an article that proves both of us correct – Flaherty phased in Some oil company subsidies … but there are still more to go:
http://www.canada.com/business/Phase+subsidies+Flaherty+urged/3072986/story.html?id=3072986
Looks as if there is still more work to both balance the budget & pay down debt, while employing the oil patch to keep us driving … a Prius!
PS. While not driving a hybrid, I’ve learned that judicious coasting with a manual transmission can improve my metrage/mileage by 25%.
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Lorne, I read the article referenced above. It points to the fact that Canada isn’t trying hard enough to cut oil and gas subsidies, and that we are still subsidizing oil and gas by about 2 billion a year. At least the article acknowledges Global Warming.
I’ve been looking at vehicles, and current models that I’ve seen are impressively fuel efficient, and getting better all the time. You’re right that driving habits have a big impact on fuel efficiency. I’d still like a hybrid though. The technology is amazing.
Let’s hope that we can push governments to reduce oil and gas subsidies further. We need those monies for more progressive causes.
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Kudos to Australia for introducing a CARBON TAX.
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